Tagged: Latino Vote

We have an exciting update about PODER PAC’s June 18 & 19th events! NEA Vice President Lily Eskelsen will be a featured speaker and Giselle Fernandez will serve as our Emcee for both the Kick Off Reception and Half Day conference.

LILY ESKELSEN

Lily Eskelsen, an elementary teacher from Utah, is Vice President of the National Education Association. She is one of the highest-ranking labor leaders in the country and one of its most influential Hispanic educators.

President Obama recently appointed Lily to the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, whose goal is to expand education opportunities and improve education outcomes for Hispanic students. She is one of 30 leaders from the education, labor, philanthropic, and nonprofit sectors to serve on this national commission.

She began her career in education as a lunch worker in a school cafeteria. She became a kindergarten aide and was encouraged by the teacher to go to college and become a teacher herself. She worked her way through the University of Utah on scholarships, student loans, and as a starving folk singer, graduating magna cum laude in elementary education and later earning her master’s degree in instructional technology.

After teaching for only nine years, she was named Utah Teacher of the Year, using that title as a platform to speak out against the dismal funding of Utah schools. A year later she was elected president of the Utah Education Association. Lily was president of the Utah State Retirement System, only the second woman to ever be elected to the position; president of the Children at Risk Foundation; and was a member of the White House Strategy Session on Improving Hispanic Education.

GISELLE FERNANDEZ

Five-time Emmy award winning journalist, producer, film maker and Latin media marketing entrepreneur, Giselle Fernandez is the Managing Director of Creative World Talent Management, a division of the Trump Group, overseeing a diverse global media operation with special emphasis in Latin America and the U.S. Latin market.

Fernandez has made significant contributions to the CBS and NBC networks. Among her numerous posts, Fernandez anchored NBC’s weekend edition of the “Today Show” and Sunday edition of the “NBC Nightly News.” She also handled special and foreign assignments for the NBC network. Prior to that, Fernandez served at CBS News substituting for Paula Zhan on “CBS This Morning,” Dan Rather on the “CBS Evening News” and Connie Chung on the “CBS Weekend News”.

Additionally, Fernandez was a regular contributor to CBS “Sunday Morning,”“Face the Nation” and “48 Hours.” Her on the spot coverage of international news stories from locations such as the Gulf War, the US Invasions of Haiti and Panama, the Somalia and Bosnian Wars, Hurricane Andrew, the 1993 World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings, and interviews with global leaders like Fidel Castro, Henry Kissinger, Presidents William Clinton and George H.W. Bush, Vice-President Albert Gore and U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, garnered this news veteran five Emmy Awards.

For more details, please see invite below or contact us at (202) 547-6656 or RSVP@poderpac.com.

Hispanics are poised for major gains in Congress this fall, ensuring a boost to their clout on Capitol Hill.

Latinos are positioned to seize at least a handful of new House seats, thanks to redistricting. California has three new Hispanic-majority districts, and Texas, depending on the final outcome of legal wrangling over congressional maps, is expected to have one or two.

Democrats also are fielding at least six strong Hispanic recruits in other districts currently represented by white members. And the GOP has a high-profile candidate of its own in former California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, who’s trying to unseat Rep. Lois Capps, a white Democrat.

Taken together, the Hispanic delegation could see its ranks swell. Hispanic lawmakers currently hold 25 House seats, according to The Almanac of American Politics, and after the election, that number could reach well over 30.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is expected to chair the Democratic National Convention. Another sign the Party is hoping to woo Latino voters.

“His appointment is a coup for the Democratic Party,” Barbara O’Connor, director emeritus of the Institute for Study of Politics and Media at California State University, Sacramento told the Christian Science Monitor. “He will attract Hispanic voters but also a lot of money by virtue of his relationship to business both in Los Angeles and internationally.”

Villaraigosa knows how to hustle. Under his belt, he’s tagged a strong network of business contacts, while teaming up with transportation leaders throughout Los Angeles County. He’s also leading a bipartisan coalition of more than 100 mayors, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the AFL-CIO in support of a plan before Congress called America Fast Forward.

For Republicans, it used to be a sure thing: Come to Florida. Collect the Hispanic vote. Move on.

That’s because the Hispanic vote used to mean, for the most part, the Cuban-American vote. Not anymore.

Republican candidates rolling into the Sunshine State for the biggest primary so far, on Jan. 31, face a new reality — an increasingly diverse electorate, both demographically and politically.

Now, politicians face two diametrically opposed Hispanic voting blocs in Florida: Cuban-American Republicans concentrated in South Florida, and Puerto Rican Democrats concentrated in Central Florida. Both will play a major role in deciding who wins this crucial state in 2012.

A “Super PAC” with ties to organized labor is airing radio advertisements in San Antonio challenging Republican Rep. Francisco “Quico” Canseco’s voting record on the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits that the congressman’s campaign on Wednesday called “absolutely wrong.”

Canseco, a San Antonio Republican, is being targeted by national Democrats who see the swing district seat as part of their strategy to win back the House of Representatives.

The Latino Project of The American Worker Political Action Committee, a “Super PAC” funded in part by labor groups, is airing 60-second ads in English and Spanish on three San Antonio radio stations attacking Canseco’s voting record.

“Times are tough, and millionaire bank executive Quico Canseco, well he appears to be confused on who he works for in Congress,” says the radio ad narrative.

BREAKING … HISPANIC SUPER PAC TO TARGET 15 CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS: Super PAC The American Worker says it is preparing to support Latino Democratic congressional candidates in 15 districts among 11 states. Congressional districts in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin are in the new super PAC’s sights, and The American Worker organizers say the super PAC “will spend as much as $1 million per race on advertising, polling, media, phones, mail, research and new media.” The American Worker leader Chuck Rocha tells PI that it has an overall fundraising goal this cycle of $5 million to $15 million, with its support coming largely from “organized labor and progressive Latinos across the country.”

The super PAC is kicking off its efforts this week with an ad campaign on several San Antonio radio stations targeting Rep. Francisco Canseco (R-Texas) that questions his record on unemployment issues, taxes and pans his personal tax-paying history. Says Rocha: “The GOP’s failure on all these fronts and their anti-middle class agenda will be a key focus of this campaign as we help Latinos flex their substantial political muscle.”